Yankees catcher Chris Stewart is...not a good hitter. He might be better if he didn't give up after two strikes.

In the second inning of last night's win over Baltimore, Stewart took a ball just off the outside corner. Then he fouled one off. Then he swung and missed, and walked back to the dugout.

"[Home plate umpire Jim Wolf] said something the first pitch, and I thought he called it a strike," Stewart said. "I assumed it was 0-1, I fouled a ball off and I swung and missed at a ball. No one said anything; the umpire didn't say anything, so I just came on back to the dugout and put my stuff away."

Striking out on three straight and trudging to the dugout is apparently in Stewart's muscle memory. Still, he did wonder why Wolf didn't call him back to the plate, saying it would have been "a nice little courtesy." There's no mystery why the Orioles battery, which was well aware of the count, kept silent.

"It has happened to me before, but I was shocked when he walked out of the box," [Wei-Yin] Chen said. "He gives me an out, I'll take it. It's part of baseball."

Stewart said he learned about the brainfart a half-inning later, and couldn't do much but laugh. "I would've hit a home run if I'd stayed there."